Digital assets and content, e.g., applications, music, videos, games, etc., may be offered to users of computing devices such as cell phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants), mobile devices, personal computers, etc., by third-party publishers. Mobile operators, which operate the access networks to which mobile computing devices wirelessly connect to enable them to communicate with the Internet, may also in some instances desire to make content available to their user base as third-party publishers. Additionally, manufacturers of operating systems running on the computing devices may provide access to general content for users of the devices, and may operate an online marketplace from which content from the operating system manufacture itself, as well as from the third party publishers, may be downloaded by users.
One drawback of these online marketplaces, however, is that when a vast array of content is made available, it can sometimes be difficult for a user to locate relevant content from a particular third-party publisher of relevance to the user, such as from the user's mobile operator. Due to this difficulty, the user may be unaware of content offers to which the user is entitled. Further, the mobile operators cannot effectively utilize the application catalog to present valuable content to their users.
Detecting mobile operator networks is useful in activating features such as mobile operator billing, and in enabling a mobile operator to offer exclusive content to its users. However, without having in-depth knowledge of specific, encrypted keys, it may be difficult to determine what mobile network a specific mobile device is using to access the Internet, particularly given the many different mobile network providers.